Enter the Portal

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Review

The Super Smash Bros. series is one of the most successful and played Nintendo games of all time. It has gained both commercial and critical success; and players from both casual and hardcore fanbases have taken it to its own. This is why expectations are rising very high and after each entry surpassing them becomes even more challenging for the development team.

Me and my pals always played the previous entries together which has made me quite a fan of the series. It’s mostly related to the fact the gameplay is fun, but also demands lots of skills from the players. We always even tend to be very competitive which has made us value the so-said pro techniques that separate the novice and experienced players from each other. This is what appeals to the fans – everyone can enjoy the game. It’s never too late to jump into the series and smash together with your friends!

GAMEPLAY

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS doesn’t really change the basis: there are over 40 playable characters, each having its own special moves and signature final smashes, which they use to throw each others out from the arena. The winner is the person who is last standing or who has performed the most KOs. The player can adjust the rules the way he likes: do you want time, HP or stock based fights? Do want to have items or not, and what about teams? This all is up to you and your preference. My personal choice is always the stock based because then you don’t need to worry about time and you can easily focus on fighting.

In the Super Smash Bros. games, the controls play a big part because they need to be precise due to the game’s nature. With the 3DS version I felt the analog stick isn’t as sensitive as I would prefer it to be: running often demands quite hard pressing, which isn’t satisfying aspect during long game sessions. Even though the game allows you change the control setup, it doesn’t help in this case. Other thing I found problematic was blocking and evading, because the original 3DS’ back buttons are too small for my big hands. With the 3DS XL, the gameplay experience was more enjoyable due to it’s bigger size and buttons.

This is one of those things that makes the game more party and easy-going title than core. The problems became even more obvious when I played against high leveled bots and bosses, which demand good blocking and on-point timing with attacks.

CUSTOMIZATION

For the first time in the series, you get to customize the playable characters and even create new ones based on your Miis. When customizing, you can choose different kinds of equipments, outfits, and decide which skills you want to focus on: power, agility or protecting. With power it’s easier to kick enemies out from the arena, agility allows faster movement and defense makes you “heavier” and reduces the impact of enemy attacks. These new updates are a welcome addition to the game. My only wish was that you could use these characters online as well. At least on “for fun” mode.

STAGES

When it comes to the stages, the developers made a great designing choice by letting the players choose Ω version of each stage, making them neutral and flat arenas without any gimmicks. This makes the gameplay more refreshing since I always tend to prefer the Final Destination map over anything because it heavily emphasizes skills over luck or coincidences. Overall the map design is good, but I’m not so fond of these maps that move forwards and you have to keep up with the camera.

Smash Run is a 3DS-exclusive mode where up to four players compete against each other. Before testing their skills at the arena, the players have to explore a labyrinth and collect power boosting items. In a way, it feels very similar to the story mode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but provides nothing else than bot killing and competing against each others. Sure, it brings something new to the experience, but the newness disappears fairly fast…

Here we come to a problem: What else than a basic versus mode a fighting game like Super Smash Bros. really needs anyway? I think I am one of the few fans of the series who actually enjoyed the story elements in the previous game, because they created funny setting between characters and provided something interesting to do when you weren’t feeling like completing against your friends.

GAME MODES & ONLINE

The all-stars and classic modes are returning this time too. In the All Star mode, you have to beat the whole roster in a chronological way. It’s a nice history lesson for the newcomers and shows how long and respectable history Nintendo has in the games industry. Classic mode is nearly the same but, at the end, you will face a special boss fight, where you have to beat two iconic Smash-only characters. The difficulty can be adjusted by betting more money, thus, increasing your prize. In Brawl, there was multiple different boss fights and I would have preferred to see more boss characters from a wide variety of Nintendo games this time too. Learning their behavior and weaknesses during epic fighting sceneries was a more pleasing experience overall.

The online mode is the place where you meet all your friends, strangers and compete against each other. The 3DS version demands a good online code since we can’t connect multiple controllers to the handheld. Most of the time, the lag is very minimal when playing with people from the same country. When I spent time playing the game with our readers, I was happy to see that the network codec was solid even overseas. This kind of things is purely related to both players’ internet connection. While playing against random players online, you can’t really avoid laggy matches, though. Luckily, they aren’t as common as in the previous game.

The local play worked flawlessly. However, what I’m wishing Nintendo would make the game more social experience. For example, chat room in Soul Calibur V made it easier to make new friends, plan fights with friends and discuss about the game. Sometimes expressing your frustration was satisfying that way as well, hah!

SEE YOU SOON AGAIN

With a large variety of characters, quality music and stages, Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS looks and feels like an ultimate Nintendo game. The graphics are the best we have seen on the 3DS: clear and colorful. The gameplay feels very polished and feeds the players’ Smash hunger on the road when they cannot access their home consoles. Due to limitations in the controls, I feel that the true “hardcore” action will be happening on the Wii U version, where the controls are much likely more precise. The final and biggest problem with the the 3DS version could be the possibility it is taking the WOW factor from the Wii U version. To tell my opinion on this, you will have to wait until our Super Smash Bros. for Wii U review, where I will be digging even deeper into the latest installment in this fan loved franchise.

We would like to thank Bergsala for providing us a review copy of this game. Though, we have to apologize the delay of the review due to incident with our hardware side, which led to this to happen. We’re back to bring the 3DS reviews on time for our community now!